Marketing can be a significant contributor to the success or failure of a product. For example, in the retail industry, the ability to present products and/or samples to consumers in an attractive and/or readily accessible manner can substantially improve sales. Indeed, a great deal of marketing time and effort is often directed toward product display containers in a wide variety of retail environments such as clothing stores, convenience stores, video rental stores, grocery stores, drug stores, trade shows, etc.
Product display containers are often made of a foldable material such as cardboard. Some have a floor-standing configuration with a relatively complicated deployment design. For instance, it is not uncommon for a retail product display to require the manipulation of dozens of folds/creases, perforations and flaps in order to ready the display for use. These complicated deployment designs can result in a time-consuming and labor intensive product display process.
Other approaches to dispensing retail items can involve the use of hanging display containers having multiple compartments. The display container is hung from a hook or clip, and the compartments are loaded with the products to be dispensed. While these displays can be much easier to set up, they often lack stiffness. For example, the display may be required to loaded with product in order to stay in the display position. If the product is removed, the display folds up on itself. This is undesirable as the folded display can be unattractive and can make the retail location appear unkempt. It is also undesirable because it may block view of advertising or other indicia on the display. Moreover, a folded display is more difficult to reload with product.